Andrey Kurkov

About

Andrey Kurkov is a Ukrainian novelist, journalist, and screenwriter, born near Leningrad in 1961. He moved to Kyiv during childhood and graduated from the Kyiv Institute of Foreign Languages in 1983. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a journalist, served as a prison guard in Odesa, and worked as a film cameraman and screenwriter. Kurkov is internationally recognised for his distinctive blend of dark humour, absurdism, magical realism, and social commentary. His best-known novel, Death and the Penguin, follows a struggling Kyiv writer who adopts a penguin from a struggling zoo and becomes entangled in the strange realities of post-Soviet society. The novel became an international bestseller and has been translated into more than thirty languages. Other notable works include Grey Bees, which portrays life in eastern Ukraine during the conflict following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv, which was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2023. His nonfiction books, including Ukraine Diaries and Diary of an Invasion, document Ukraine’s political upheavals and Russia’s full-scale invasion. Through fiction and reportage, Kurkov explores the absurdities of political life, the resilience of ordinary people, and the complexities of Ukrainian identity. He has become an important international voice on Ukrainian literature, culture, and the realities of war.